Did Tiffany Haddish Just Storm the Best Supporting Actress Oscar Race?

After top honor from New York film critics, pundits and fans see gold for “Girls Trip” star

Tiffany Haddish
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for BET

Tiffany Haddish’s “Girls Trip” may take her all the way to an Oscar, now that a Thursday honor has boosted her chances for gold.

Haddish was named best supporting actress by the New York Film Critics Circle for her turn in the Universal Pictures summer comedy — a performance with the kind of legs that got Melissa McCarthy an Oscar nomination for her breakout in 2012’s “Bridesmaids.”

“Tiffany Haddish’s performance in ‘Girls Trip’ was just as compelling as Melissa McCarthy in ‘Bridesmaids’ and Amy Schumer in ‘Trainwreck.’ It shouldn’t be ignored this awards season,” tweeted Tracy Oliver, who wrote the script for “Girls Trip,” after Haddish’s win.

“Tiffany Haddish is in the M—- F—— HOUSE!!!!!!! She’s coming for you #Oscars,” awards season analyst Clayton Davis wrote on social media.

Comedy actors have a notoriously hard time breaking out in a pack of dramatic performances, and when (godforbid) they get recognized it is usually for going straight. Think Eddie Murphy and his Jimmy Early in “Dreamgirls” or Bill Murray’s sullen and sweet drinker in “Lost in Translation.” McCarthy didn’t go the distance in 2012, by the way, losing to the pie-making talents of  Octavia Spencer in “The Help.”

What’s interesting about this year, however, is that the ground is plenty soft for supporting actress performances that pack a lot of levity. Frontrunner Holly Hunter is navigating a daughter in a coma in “The Big Sick,” but is easily one of the funniest parts of the Kumail Nanjiani vehicle produced by Judd Apatow.

Allison Janney plays an unloving, cast iron mother to figure skater Tonya Harding in the violent “I, Tonya,” but walks away with the entire film thanks to her deadpan line delivery — at the film’s Toronto premiere in September, the Princess of Wales theater erupted with laughs throughout.

Evan Laurie Metcalfe, the unsung comedy hero of classic fare like “Roseanne,” brings wickedly funny exasperation as the mother of an upwardly mobile millennial daughter in “Lady Bird.”

Read some of the best reactions to Haddish’s upped-Oscar chances, and consider this a formal request to drop a praise and worship dance should she make it to the main stage at Dolby Theater in March.

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